AUGUST. 
'2Sl 
ON GREY-EDGED AND SELF AURICULAS. 
Will you permit me to say, that having always been as particular as 
Mrs. Malaprop about my parts of speech, 1 take it the more imkind of the 
printer to make the first sentence of my last communication ungram¬ 
matical, by the gratuitous insertion of a second nominative, namely, 
the letter “ I,” in the form of the personal pronoun (page 193). But 
I must forgive him, as I see there is nothing personal in the matter, 
except the pronoun; for at page 217 he has made “ J. S.” give some 
startlingly unnecessary instructions about the .^)-propagation of 
the double-flowered Tabernsemontana coronaria, and all by the omis¬ 
sion of another little vowel, “o.” For we are told that if sufficient 
care be taken, as prescribed, in the original selection, and if sufficient 
care be taken with them afterwards, “ cuttings soon rot,” while the 
hapless propagator is expecting them to root. 
But respecting the grey-edged section of Auriculas, though a very 
interesting one, it need not occupy a whole paper, and therefore I shall 
take it and the seifs together. As far as I can discover from old gar¬ 
dening books, the grey edge seems to be the first form of deviation from 
the simplicity of the wild species, and to have arisen from the force of 
cultivation acting upon the habit of the plant, to exude a meal upon 
the thinner parts of its external surface. Colour seems to have a ten¬ 
dency to prevent the formation of this meal. The original species 
appears to exist in two varieties, the yellow and the coloured, for tra¬ 
vellers in its Alpine home have mentioned meeting with both these 
forms. Choice'Auriculas cultivated in pots, and much prized, I find 
notices of nearly 150 years ago ; but the habit of naming varieties 
appears not to have been in common use then, though probably it 
existed. The first named variety I have met with. Grimes’ Privateer, 
is still cultivated, and is usually among those that get a prize at 
Middleton, having been preferred in a judgment of points ’’ or “ pro¬ 
perties ” (very unsoundly as I think) to Lancashire, when the latter 
was shown by Robert Lancashire as a seedling in 1846. 
Even in 1827, when I first made acquaintance with this florist’s 
flower, at the nursery of a grower in Sunbury, who commonly carried 
off the cup at the London shows, the green-edged section were included 
in this class, and only separated by their position in it, like the 
wranglers and senior optimes of the early Cambridge triposes. The 
separation of the two classes, though in particular specimens more 
fanciful than real, and therefore often objected to, is a sound one, and 
no doubt will henceforth maintain its place. 
But why is it that this older class is in every dealer’s catalogue the 
less numerous ? And why is it, seeing it is the less perfect form, that 
the highest priced flowers are almost always found in it, and that the 
average prices are higher than in any other section ? These facts at 
first sight seem out of due order, and yet when examined they admit 
of a fair explanation. Being the eldest and first formed class it has 
had more time to evolve its perfection, and the best specimens of the 
cultivated Auricula ought to be looked for in it; and consequently 
inferior novelties would be less tolerated. Besides which, there will bo 
